national selection

As the first country Belarus tonight held its national final to select the entry that will, probably, represent them at the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest. Among 10 songs Alena Lanskaya won and is, as things stand right now, ready for Malmö. Tonight show featured performances from several former Eurovision participants.

The conclusion was clear after the presentation of the first half of the participants in the 2013 edition of Melodifestivalen: Fans felt that SVT owed them some bigger and more experienced names. Would they get that today when the remaining artist was announced?

Unser Song für Malmö (Our song for Malmö) - that is the official title of the German final for the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest. The show will be hosted in Hannover on February 14th. A number of 8-12 known acts will participate and the winner will be chosen in a three-part voting.

For many Eurovision fans the Swedish selection stands as something magical. The participating names are awaited with even more eager than a 5 year old looking forward to his Christmas presents. Few minutes ago the first half of these names were announced revealing several interesting names.

For the second time in a row Belgium has chosen their representative for the Eurovision Song Contest internally. Today the TV channel RTBF announced that Roberto Bellarosa, winner of the casting show The Voice will represent the country in Malmö. More details about the song selection will be revealed on November 20th.

Last night the Lithuanian TV viewers were once again asked to vote among eight songs presented to them - just as the jury would be doing. We already know which three songs the jury ended up preferring, but it will be almost another week before we know if the TV viewers agreed.

After having presented a total of 33 acts LRT started its first preliminary heat tonight. 8 songs competed in a show that offered a song by a former Eurovision songwriter and as a special treat for Eurovision fans also a song about last year's winner Loreen.

The first heat took place this Saturday with a two hour show that was broadcast by LRT. It was a pre-recorded presentation show where seventeen acts were introduced to the audience, however the songs they performed were not their own songs but well known hits. There was no voting.

Mirela, Paco Arrojo, Anael, Jorge González and Mónica Guech had something in common so far as that all of them had participated in the national selection to represent Spain at the Eurovision Song Contest. From now on, they are rivals in the Spanish edition of the talent show, The Voice.

Early Tuesday morning was the deadline for sending entries to the swedish national selection Melodifestivalen 2013. A total of 2549 songs were counted which could be compared to 3485 songs that was sent in last year.